The January Uprising of 1863 was a conflict between Tsarist Russia and Polish insurgents striving for independence. The uprising continued until October 1864, when it was suppressed by the Russian forces, effectively erasing the already limited autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland.

The uprising failed due to factors such as the inability of factions like the radical Reds and the moderate Whites to assume effective leadership and the absence of a regular army – as in the November Uprising of 1830 – which forced most of the battles to be fought in the form of guerrilla warfare. The uprising resulted in the complete elimination of Poland as a political entity, and just as after the November Uprising of 1830, the Polish people were once again forced into exile in Siberia, this time without the prospect of amnesty. Poland's independence would remain unattainable for another 50 years.

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned and ultimately abolished by Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1795. From that point onward, Poles engaged in numerous uprisings and wars in an effort to regain their independence and re-establish their state. During the Napoleonic Wars, they fought alongside Napoleon Bonaparte's armies under the command of Józef Poniatowski (1763 to 1813), advancing as far as Moscow. They once again took up arms during the November Uprising of 1830. The uprising of 1830, like the others, also ended in the defeat of the Polish forces. During the Revolutions of 1848, many Poles joined the Hungarian army in its struggle against Austria, and while some were captured, others were forced into exile, several of whom found refuge in Constantinople.

The Crimean War (1853 to 1856) marked a significant defeat for Tsarist Russia. The combined support of Britain, France, and Piedmont-Sardinia for the Ottoman Empire led to Russia's eventual defeat. Near the end of the war, Tsar Nicholas I (reign 1825 to 1855) died and was succeeded by Alexander II of Russia (reign 1855 to 1881). At the Paris Conference, which gathered to conclude the Crimean War, the Russian minister declared that he had never heard the word 'Poland' (Davies, 256).

Recognizing that the Russian Empire was no longer operating with the same efficacy as before, Alexander II acknowledged the imperative need for comprehensive reforms in the military, financial system, and bureaucratic structure. Although Alexander was less harsh with Poland than his predecessor, he made it clear during his visit in 1856 that his concessions had limits when he addressed the people with his famous phrase, "Pas de rêveries, messieurs," meaning "No daydreaming, gentlemen" (Davies, 257).

Alexander II permitted Poles to engage in the Tsarist Russian state bureaucracy, supported economic initiatives, and abolished tariff barriers, thereby granting Poles access to Russian markets. Collectively, these measures temporarily delayed a Polish uprising. Alexander also authorized the creation of institutions urgently needed by the Polish people. Among the most significant was the establishment of the Szkoła Główna, or 'Main School' in Warsaw, which, although not a university, functioned as its substitute and aimed to train loyalists to Tsarist service within the bureaucracy. Additionally, the Polish Academy of Medicine and Surgery was reopened.

The Tsar could not accomplish all this work alone and therefore required the collaboration of prominent figures. Among them were Leopold Kronenberg (1812 to 1878), a Jewish banker and industrialist from Warsaw, and Count Andrzej Zamoyski (1800 to 1874). Kronenberg founded the City Delegation, which emerged in Warsaw in 1861 with the mission of conveying the views of the city's leading figures to decision-makers. One of the challenges facing Tsarist Russia was improving agriculture and ameliorating the conditions of peasants. To gather the necessary input for these reforms, the Agricultural Society was established in Poland in 1857. Both organizations were, in a sense, political entities. The Agricultural Society's significance was underscored in 1858 when the Russian government requested it to prepare a series of land reform proposals. During this period, the abolition of serfdom – a system already obsolete in much of Europe and a major obstacle to Russia's modernization – was a central topic of debate. By 1860, the Agricultural Society had effectively been recognized as a de facto Sejm (parliament).

In 1861, Russia finally decided to abolish serfdom, and the effects manifested themselves rather swiftly in Poland. The Agricultural Society in Warsaw called for the granting of full property rights within the kingdom. Growing unrest increasingly gave way to more violent forms of protest; in October 1860, during a theatrical performance at the Great Theatre attended by Tsar Alexander and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (reign 1848 to 1916), bombs were detonated. On 25 February 1861, a group of Poles organized a gathering to commemorate the 1830 uprising, which was dispersed by the Tsarist police. Two days later, during a religious procession, fire was opened on the crowd, resulting in the deaths of five people. Far from subsiding, the disturbances escalated further with each passing day. A similar demonstration in April culminated in the deaths of hundreds. A state of emergency was declared in October. As historian Jerzy Lukowski describes the situation:

The Russian authorities… found themselves in an awkward situation characteristic of authoritarian imperial regimes that embark on liberal reform; repression would only inflame Polish patriotic feelings while concessions would only encourage the Poles to ask for more.

(Lukowski, 174)

In an effort to suppress the continuing disturbances in Warsaw, the Tsar turned to Aleksander Wielopolski (1803 to 1877), a Polish aristocrat whose proposals he had previously rejected on several occasions. In March, Wielopolski was appointed to oversee education and religious affairs in Warsaw. Wielopolski advanced rapidly through the ranks, assuming ever greater powers. In April 1861, he was appointed Commissioner for Justice, and in 1862, he rose to the position of Head of the Civil Administration. These appointments, introduced while unrest in Warsaw persisted, had a clear purpose: the restoration of order. Yet it was evident that restoring order would prove no easy task.

In October 1861, the City Committee was established by the Reds, a radical group composed of figures seeking to carry out a social revolution and to liberate Poland from Tsarist rule. In December, a more moderate faction, the Whites, was formed under the leadership of Leopold Kronenberg and Count Andrzej Zamoyski. In 1862, Zamoyski submitted a proposal to Grand Duke Constantine, demanding the restoration of Poland to its pre-1815 status, the reintroduction of the constitution, the reinstatement of the Sejm, and the re-establishment of an independent army. Before long, however, he was summoned to the imperial capital, St. Petersburg, by Tsar Alexander II to account for his actions and was subsequently exiled.

Unrest in Warsaw persisted, and Wielopolski, determined to deliver on his promise to restore order, did not hesitate to resort to severe measures. Believing that identifying and removing the insurgents required preemptive action, Wielopolski devised a scheme whereby 30,000 men would be conscripted, hoping that it would ensnare the disruptive youth. Since those conscripted would already be contained within the army and thus unable to generate further unrest, the measure implied that anyone who managed to evade conscription could become a potential target. The date set for this Branka, "the forced draft," was 14 January 1863. Representatives of the Reds faction, Stefan Bobrowski (1841 to 63) and Zygmunt Padlewski, had in fact envisioned the spring of 1863 as the proper moment for an uprising; however, the Branka compelled them to act without delay.

On 22 January 1863, the Provisional National Government was proclaimed, declaring war on Tsarist Russia with the demand that Poland be restored to its 1772 borders (the year of the first of three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795). From the outset, the uprising appeared destined for failure, for unlike the November Uprising of 1830, Poland no longer possessed a regular army. What remained amounted to little more than some 20,000 scattered bands, poorly armed and dispersed across the country: "their numbers grew periodically, and in all some 100,000 people would fight over the next eighteen months, but they were no match for the 300,000 Russian regulars concentrated against them" (Zamoyski, 244). The paucity of participants, the absence of artillery, the fragmentation of the forces, and the failure to capture Płock, the designated center of the insurrection, ensured that the uprising would take the form of guerrilla warfare.

The movement required a leader, and Ludwik Adam Mierosławski (1814 to 1878), a veteran of the 1830 uprising and commander in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1846, was eager to assume the role. Widely regarded as "the Garibaldi of Poland", Mierosławski arrived to take command of the insurrection and became its first naczelnik (dictator). Yet, after a series of defeats, he resigned from the dictatorship.

His successor, Marian Langiewicz (1827 to 1887), served for only nine days before suffering defeat and retreating into Galicia, ultimately ending up in Constantinople, where he died. Prolonged disputes between the radical Reds and the moderate Whites prevented consensus over who should assume leadership. The question remained unresolved until October 1863, when command was taken over by Romuald Traugutt (1825 to 1864), a Lithuanian landowner and experienced officer who had served as a colonel in the Crimean War. "Lean, silent, cool, disciplined, efficient, he possessed most of the qualities so signally lacking in his immediate predecessors" (Davies, 264). He succeeded in reviving an uprising that was on the verge of collapse, and without him, the 1863 insurrection would likely have ended by October.

By consolidating the authority of the dispersed command structures under his leadership, Traugutt ensured that the military wing of the uprising was directed from a single center. Moreover, the movement spread not only across Polish lands but also reached parts of Ukraine and Belarus, while in Lithuania it gained particularly significant support. Yet even Traugutt was unable to secure the long-desired independence of the Poles. The Reds regarded him as a general too closely aligned with the Whites and therefore withheld crucial support. To protect the secrecy of the organization, very few people knew the true identity of the naczelnik, and only six individuals were allowed to visit him. A form of coded communication was established, drawing on verses from Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz and from the Imitatio Christi. Despite this elaborate network of secrecy and encryption, Traugutt's identity was uncovered; in April 1864, he was suddenly arrested by armed police while lying in bed.

Alexander II recognized that military measures alone would not suffice to extinguish the insurrection. Thus, in March 1864, serfdom was abolished in Poland, following the persuasion of one of the Tsar's senior officials, Nikolay Alekseyevich Milyutin (1818–1872). Serfdom had already been abolished in Russia in 1861, and in order to win over the Polish peasantry, it had to be extended to Polish lands as well. Landowners were compensated directly by the state. Meanwhile, on 5 August 1864, Traugutt was executed. The last insurgent unit, under the command of Stanisław Brzóska, held out until 1865. With its defeat, the final embers of the uprising were extinguished.

The November Uprising of 1830 had culminated in the Wielka Emigracja (Great Emigration) and exile to Siberia. The Poles who rose in 1846 to 1848 likewise ended up in Siberia, and some 50,000 men who had taken part in, supported, or were merely suspected of supporting the January Uprising later joined them. Although Alexander II had previously pardoned several exiles still in Siberia from earlier uprisings, these new deportees were never to be pardoned. This time, Tsarist Russia showed no leniency toward the Polish insurgents; so much so that even Vladimir Lenin (1870 to 1924) encountered Polish exiles during his own exile in Siberia between 1897 and 1900. The Królestwo Polskie (Kingdom of Poland), established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was formally abolished in 1866 and renamed the Vistula Province. The restoration of Poland's independence would not occur until the end of the First World War (1914 to 18), half a century later.